In the United States today, the cliché is true: The richer are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The saying has to be revised somewhat since it is the entire bottom 80 percent of households who are getting relatively poorer, not just households in poverty.

Figure 1 shows that the bottom four quintiles all received a smaller share of all income in 2024 than in 1974. For example, the third or middle quintile received 17 percent of all income in 1974 but only 13.9 percent in 2024. In contrast the highest quintile received 43.5 percent in 1974, and its share grew to 52.2 percent in 2024. The top 20........

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